These Streets Will Make You Feel Brand New

New York

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,

There's nothing you can’t do,

Now you're in New York

These streets will make you feel brand new,

big lights will inspire you,

Let's hear it for New York, New York, New York

My whole life I have been fascinated by cities and tall buildings.  Fascinated.  Every since I was a little girl, and we would go on family trips, I could barely contain myself in the car when we would drive by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield building on I20 going through Columbia.  As time went by and I traveled more, there was just something magical about the tall buildings and millions of lights.  In college, my room was lined with the skylines of Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.

It is shocking to me then that in spite of this infatuation with all areas metropolitan, that in 35 years some how I never made it to THE city.  New York City has always been this goliath legend looming in the distance; this great herald beckoning me with its grandeur, excitement, bright lights, crowds of people, and endless possibilities.  However, I think like with other things in my life I was scared to bite the bullet and go.  I was scared I would be let down; petrified that there was no way it could be as amazing for real as it is in my favorite movies, tv shows, books, and vivid imagination.  Friends would go.  Family would go.  They would all beg me to go, and I came up with an endless array of excuses. 

But finally, at last, I finally made it, albeit on a tour bus full of high school students and parents, but I made it.  As we pulled out the school parking lot that Thursday night I wasn’t sure what I would find 13 hours north on I95, but I was hoping it would have just a little bit of the magic I was hoping to find.